Do people really donate through PayPal?

If you dont have real ads it can be useful for lots of sites! Like a site for a musician that is just getting started, if he releases his early stuff for free and its nice, people have no problem donating, as long as its for REAL content.

 

I have donated in the past for useful software and/or documentation

 

I have a Donate Button for charity. It is for the Huntsman Cancer Foundation, I have not received any donations. I have it in a couple spots. I thought I would be able to raise some money. Oh well, It might work sometime. we will see.

 

Booo... it depend if u r giving some very useful information even I can donate to you However I dont use one yet on my site. Maybe whenI have much useful information I will add one..

 

If people are really into the site, they can. Had a forum where people donated, but it was more like beer money - nothing serious.

 

With my experience it varies with the content... i mean if you cover a site with ads, and then have a donate box, the chances are you'll get less donations... but it depends what the user gets out of it in all honesty

 

No They Do NOT! I have a 400 UV/day website that was hundreds if not thousand hours to build. I did not receive a penny yet. Average time on site: 7 minutes!

 

If you are posting really good stuff that is useful for others, then you will surely get good donations

 

If you go sticking Paypal donate buttons on your website and start hinting about it in mass PM's etc just watch your membership dwindle!
I've donated to quite afew sites but the files I downloaded in return were good quality files that would have cost me alot more somewhere else.You know.
I joined a load of HD movie sites/forums and I picked the one HD movie site I thought was best out of the bunch I joined and I donated to that site for bandwidth so I could download the big HD 1080 movies from the site without screwing up my ratio and being banned for low ratio. I then took advantage of a VIP lifetime offer they had and for $70 I joined for lifetime VIP..As long as the site never closes I have somewhere to get the best quality High Def 1080 movies for as long as I like without worrying about ratio and being banned.
Apart from that movie site the only other website I've donated to was a specialized site/forum where you could download tutorial type programs and video presentations on all things to do with computers from using software like Dreamweaver etc and 3D Cad programs etc.But the donation was only $25...
I think alot of people think they can open a simple copycat site throw on a paypal button and sit back and retire.WRONG..Plus I have read on other forums where people who put paypal buttons on their website and asked for donations towards there host/server costs have the account banned by paypal and then they can never open another paypal account! Is it really worth it for the small amount you may get before papyal ban you?

 

Yes they do I myself have donated to a few websites to help out w/ hosting bills etc

 

Yes, but small amount...

agreed

Personally, i think if your site is good, it's better to place adsense and some direct ads (text link is better). The rev is (at least) enough to pay for web hosting and domain name.